Saturday, June 2, 2012

Day of the Dead Review & Retrospective (1985)

You’re only as good as your last movie, or so Hollywood says
(fortunately for Michael Bay, his movies remain consistently loud and
stupid, thus sparing him confusion). Of course, this never seems to
apply to those who keep green-lighting loud and stupid films. But I’m
not here to talk about them. I’m here to talk about our friend George
Romero.
I can say ‘our friend’, because the legendary director has always
presented himself as a charming, avuncular person to his fans. I can’t
find any instance of his acting like an asshole to members of the
public, no matter how many times they ask him the same questions,
including, “When’s the next zombie film coming out?” [I can
partially confirm Deggsy’s comment here. When I met Romero at the 2010
Texas Frightmare Weekend he was the friendliest, most humble, and
genuinely nice guy who loves his fans -- AHS]

George Romero & some friends

Poor George. He’s had a love/hate relationship with the revenants.
They’ve brought him fame, but his non-zombie films have for the most
part gone been neglected, either deservedly (TWO EVIL EYES, THE DARK
HALF, KNIGHTRIDERS) or not (THE CRAZIES, MARTIN, MONKEY SHINES). The one
big exception was 1982’s CREEPSHOW, a critical and commercial success
(and one of the best horror anthologies ever made). But despite this,
his work on the seminal NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and the frankly
magnificent DAWN OF THE DEAD was what everyone still associated him
with, and people still wanted more zombies. I can sympathise with
Romero, grateful for the acclaim the Dead brought him, but still wanting
to be known and appreciated for more.

Florida in DAY OF THE DEAD looks better than it does today!!

Still, when funds of $7 million were promised if he could bring in a third Dead movie, how could he say no?
We open on a woman slumped on the floor of a stark, windowless room,
who lifts her head up to see a calendar on the far wall. Slowly she
rises, approaches it (all the while showing that there is no door out of
the room), reaches out to the rustic picture on the calendar as if
hypnotised-
And then reels back as hands burst through the concrete wall to grab her…
She awakens in a helicopter. She is Sarah (Lori Cardille, TALES FROM
THE DARKSIDE), a scientist, travelling with her emotionally-ragged
soldier boyfriend Miguel (Anthony Dileo Jr, LORENZO’S OIL), pilot John
(Terry Alexander, CONSPIRACY THEORY) and radioman Billy McDermott
(Jarlath Conroy, TRUE GRIT) to a Florida city, landing and using a
bullhorn to call for anyone listening. Billy’s voice carries through the
deserted, litter-strewn streets, as a wind-swept newspaper unfurls to
display the headline THE DEAD WALK!

“I’ve got a headache THIS big …”

The call does not reach anything … living. Instead, the dead respond,
rising and shambling towards them, their collective moans heard even
over the blades of their helicopter. They depart, returning to their
base of operations, an underground complex surrounded by a chain link
fence straining against the weight of the dead outside. It was a
facility set up at the start of the zombie outbreak, where scientists
try to find a cure and the military tries to assist and protect them.
But civilisation has fallen around them, and the situation has
deteriorated, to say the least. Isolated for months now, supplies
dwindling, the soldiers’ numbers are depleting as more are killed trying
to round up zombies for experimentation, and the scientists are getting
nowhere.

That’s a real croc & its trainers are the zombies walking down the stairs.

Such is the tension between the groups that the soldiers’ acting
leader, the highly-irritated Captain Rhodes (Joe Pilato, who had small
roles in DAWN OF THE DEAD and KNIGHTRIDERS) [he also had a small part in PULP FICTION -- AHS]
can turn a simple meeting into a potential gunfight, even against one
of his own men, the obnoxious racist Private Steele (Gary Howard Klar,
CADILLAC MAN). The tension crosses racial and sexist lines, with John as
the only black man in the group and Sarah the only woman.

His nickname, Dr. Frankenstein, is well deserved!!

The scientists, led by Dr. Logan, aka Dr. Frankenstein (Richard
Liberty, FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR), do little to alleviate the tension,
with Logan seemingly moving away from finding a cure and focusing on
domesticating the dead. Among his better pupils is “Bub” (Sherman
Howard, LAW AND ORDER), a zombie who, in an astonishing scene, displays
knowledge of books, razors, and telephones – and speaks! Not that this
progress interests Rhodes, who’s only interested in making the dead stay
dead.
Living apart from both groups, both physically and philosophically,
is John and Billy, who keep a mobile home in another part of the
complex. Going to them for a break, Sarah questions their attitude, and
in a telling speech, John makes her rethink her own position, trying to
find answers when their world has already fallen, when they should leave
it all behind, find an island and have some babies – and teach them not
to return to this place.

That’s never gonna come out of those whites!!

Matters worsen when Miguel is bit during a zombie roundup, and two
other soldiers are indirectly killed because of him. Sarah quickly cuts
his arm off above the bite, trying to halt the infection, but Rhodes is
still ready to kill him anyway, until John and Billy agree to keep
Miguel with them, though the outlook isn’t promising. But when Rhodes
discovers that Dr. Logan has been feeding parts of his men to Bub and
the other zombies as reward, all hell breaks loose…

“They’re coming to get you Lori …”

DAY OF THE DEAD would go on to be the least critically- and
commercially-successful of the original DEAD trilogy – but it would be a
mistake to dismiss this movie on this alone. Romero was promised $7
million to make DAY (in comparison, DAWN cost only $500,000 and NIGHT a
mere $114,000), and with this Romero planned a true epic, “a GONE WITH
THE WIND of zombie movies”. In his initial storyline, the scientists
would be living aboveground in a fortress surrounded by an electrical
fence, and the military living more safely underground, and there would
have been a small army of zombies trained to defeat the “ferals”. It was
also planned that an explosion would wipe out most of the undead in the
area, and that one of the characters who died earlier would not
reanimate, thus offering hope for the survivors that death could still
be the end for them.

This looks like most older people with new technology!!

However, the backers wanted an R-rated movie to guarantee a wider
theatre release with consequent box office, a condition Romero would not
agree to, so his budget was slashed in half, and he was forced to
retool his original script, retaining most of the original characters
but keeping nearly all of the story underground. The opening and closing
scenes were shot in Fort Myers and Sanibel Island, Florida, but the
underground facility was real, a former limestone mine near Pittsburgh
converted into a storage facility. This lends a real sense of
claustrophobia to the setting (you can even see and hear bats in the
background, and I’m assuming Romero didn’t intentionally add them!), and
a feeling that the survivors are already in Hell. Most of the zombie
extras were Pittsburgh residents who volunteered to help, and those who
participated received a dollar, a cap that read ‘I Played a Zombie in
Day of the Dead’, and a copy of the THE DEAD WALK! newspaper. Damn, I’m
jealous!

Our héros. Not quite the rugged looking group of folks, is it?

Lori Cardille (whose father Billy had a small role in the original
NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD) puts in a strong performance in the lead, as
strong and convincing as Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, an intelligent
character who never has to become a damsel in distress or resort to her
sexuality (in interviews, Cardille said she tried to soften the
character, but Romero refused, believing it would weaken her, a good
move on his part). Also of note is Richard Liberty as Dr. Logan, a
multifaceted, vulnerable scientist, human and too blinkered to recognise
the dangers of his actions. Working well opposite him is Sherman Howard
as Bub (whose character has become a minor horror icon), and it’s a
friendship that both actors express in scenes without words.

The Godfather of Gore, Tom Savini, working on Bub

The rest give quite good performances, but if I had any quibble, it
is with those portraying the soldiers, in particular Joe Pilato as
Rhodes, though I lay most of the blame on Romero’s script. He stated in
interviews that he wanted to show the inability of both sides to get
along with each other in the face of the crisis around them, but the
military is primarily shown as ignorant, racist, sexist, obnoxious,
mentally disturbed and trigger-happy. Pilato in particular chews the
scenery on a number of occasions, not helped by some of Romero’s
dialogue.
Still, Rhodes *does* get one of the best death scenes ever filmed… more on that in a moment.

“Choke on ‘em …”

DAY OF THE DEAD might not receive the respect given to its
predecessors, but it remains one of the strongest additions to the genre
for the decade. Romero’s decision to deliver an unrated film reaps
dividends, and Tom Savini delivers the best effects of his career, light
years ahead of Romero’s previous movies, and still stronger than much
of what we see in today’s CGI-heavy age. The zombie makeup is
unparalleled, far beyond the grey paint and oatmeal seen in a hundred
lesser movies. And the gore is of equal strength: dissected bodies,
spilled guts, dismemberments, gunshots, bites, all delivered simply but
effectively by a true master of his art.
This
is especially true when Rhodes meets his end, and though I’d hate to
spoil it for anyone who hasn’t yet seen it, there comes with it a story
that must be told: the blood and entrails used in Rhodes’ death scene
were real, pig parts procured from a nearby slaughterhouse the weekend
before they were needed. However, during the weekend custodial staff
unplugged the refrigerator storing them, so that by the time shooting
commenced the following Monday, they were well and truly spoiled,
causing most of the people who had to get up close and personal to them
physically ill. When you watch Joe Pilato torn in half by the undead,
and he squeezes out the immortal, ad-libbed line, “Choke on them!”,
imagine those reeking intestines just under his nose.

George & Bub having a tender moment with one of his young ‘uns.

If you haven’t seen this movie, see it. It remains stronger now than
Romero’s later efforts such as LAND, DIARY and SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD. And
watch the trailer below for no other reason than it’s so Old School
[I couldn’t agree more with Deggsy in this review!! DAY OF THE
DEAD is one of my favourite horror films (and zombie) films made. It’s
bleak, dark, depressing, and claustrophobic and simply one of Romero’s
best films. If you haven’t seen this one or only saw the remake, shame
on you!! Go out and buy this film -- AHS]Deggsy’s Summary:Director: George RomeroPlot: 5 out of 5 starsGore: 10 out of 10 skullsZombie Mayhem: 5 out of 5 brainsReviewed by Derek “Deggsy” O’Brien